


I know nothing at all

by daydreams_and_fanqueens



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Gen, PTSD symptoms, Post-Tartarus (Percy Jackson), Post-The Blood of Olympus (Heroes of Olympus), Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:08:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24059497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daydreams_and_fanqueens/pseuds/daydreams_and_fanqueens
Summary: Percy, reflecting after Tartarus, after all is said and done.
Relationships: Annabeth Chase & Percy Jackson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	I know nothing at all

Percy should be sleeping, but it’s not like he sleeps much anymore anyways. He’s just sitting at the edge of the dock, the wisps of a sad melody playing again and again in his mind as he stares blankly out at the lake, the clear water reflecting the shimmering tapestry of stars above. 

He’s thinking about all of the friends who loved the stars.

( _“I can see the stars again, my lady.”_ )

( _“Until then, my friends, tell the sun and the stars hello for me.”_ )

He’s thinking about all of his old friends, all the death and destruction he’s witnessed ( _and caused_ ), how so many smiling faces and laughing voices will never return home ( _to camp, to their friends and siblings, to their parents and families_ ). There were so many names, so many friends lost year after year after year. ( _It’s his fault, they wouldn’t have died if not for him, if only if only if only–_ )

He’s thinking about how everyone seems to be able to move on, and he’s just stuck, in this eternal hazy state, not really there, only a ghost ( _he has so many ghosts haunting him_ ).

He’s thinking about how everything feels so blank and colorless.

He’s thinking about how lonely he is.

He misses the old days, when he was bright-eyed and hopeful, ready to take on the world, a child who believed in a better future – _they were children, they were only children fighting the wars of gods and cradling dying friends and screaming into the night with only the nothingness ringing back when their voices inevitably faded into the darkness_ –

He misses–

He can hardly remember what happiness is. He can see it in the faces of the younger campers, the children with the bright eyes and hopefulness they all started out with ( _why are they so normal why isn’t he normal hasn’t he suffered enough why can't he_ function–)

He’s so lonely and broken.

He feels like he’s faded into the background, lagging behind the cheerful new people who’ve come to replace him, who are kinder, smarter, better than he can ever hope to be. He feels like his world has mellowed down from the too-harsh smells of war and death and fighting and the too-loud screams of the injured, the dying, and it’s all faded to this awful, awful gray, soundless nothingness.

( _He doesn’t know which is worse_ )

He feels like all his victories, large and small, are meaningless. ( _he can’t remember the little victories, the small joys. he was able to think of happy things even in Tartarus, when he could talk to Annabeth, and they both still knew how to smile. he wonders what it says when he feels more broken and useless and despairing and defeated now, in the place of his youth, the place where he fell in love, the place he fought tooth and nail to save, than he felt in the worst hell he could imagine, a hell even the gods were afraid of._ )

Percy is so, so broken. But he doesn’t have the words for how he feels, not like Annabeth always does; he just _feels_ so deeply, and it hurts so white-hot he can’t even feel anything else anymore ( _like the gentle press of his mother’s lips to his forehead, the familiar weight of his sword in his hands, the crushing grief he feels when thinking of all the friends he couldn’t save_ ).

He’s vaguely aware that as he was falling deeper and deeper into his mind (he’s so afraid that one day he’ll realize that he can’t get out) Annabeth had come up beside him and sat next to him on the dock.

( _He remembers the underwater kiss in this lake, only two summers ago. They were so hopeful for the future – confident that there would be a future, despite all the losses, all the deaths, the blood and the tears staining skin and the ground of their home. He wishes he remembered how to keep going, how to smile, how to not just exist, but_ live.)

Annabeth doesn’t say anything, just sits by him.

And the tears are falling, streaming down his face like the tears Akhlys, the embodiment of misery, wept as he was killing her, like the tears he’s seen too many people far too young for the horrors they’d seen shed in their grief.

He’s sobbing into her shoulder as she holds him, all the hurt and grief and guilt and numbness exploding like a match to an oil spill, and his very soul _aches_.

(He thinks she’s crying too, but he doesn’t know.)

He’s so, so lonely, and lost, and broken. And maybe that’s nothing new, but he used to be alone.

At least now he has a friend to grieve with.

( _“As long as we’re together.”_ )

As long as they’re together.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Say Something" by A Great Big World. This was inspired by the song "Normal" by AJR, a song that I think perfectly encompasses how lost Percy and Annabeth feel after Tartarus. Honestly, it's an anthem for anyone feeling lost in this great big world.  
> Please tell me what you thought! Stay safe!


End file.
